Carlo's Muse

My dear Carlo,

It has been many months since our last letter, but we hope that this missive finds you in good health in beautiful, romantic Florence, or “Firenze” as you Italians say! My wife and I miss your warm country, the golden sunsets over the green-blue hills, the maroon wine as rich as velvet, the masterpieces of art in your cathedrals.

You are thinking that I have written to you now to reminisce of past beauties like any other old man sitting on the doorstep of the Great Beyond. But no, I’ve written to tell you a bizarre tale about how I, at this ripe age, have found myself a father of a little heathen. Lady Glenwood is even now chasing him up and down the front stairs. Can you imagine? At her age? I hope he will not be the death of us.

As you know the Lady Glenwood has been crusading on many a cause in our filthy city of London. She marches here and there for all sorts of nonsense and works part of her time in a “Recovery” house for, oh, shall we say, Ladies of the Evening. I worry for her when she goes into those parts of town, but she can not be dissuaded from her compassionate state.

That is how I came to be waiting in our carriage outside the Ladies Charitable Home not a week before Christmas of last year. The snow had started to fall and I was quite impatient for the old hen, I mean, my dear wife, to emerge from that dour building. London, my friend, can be a real cesspool. Industry as caused many of the poor in the countryside to flood our streets, but factory work is hard and fickle. So the streets now are full of desperate thieves and gangs of criminals. Even a rented hack can not be trusted.

After a time, and just about when I was thinking of storming that building with my top hat and cane clutched in hand, Lady Glenwood finally emerged. She came down in a rush, her eyes wide and gaunt cheeks flushed with some excitement. I had not seen her so in some time and worried for her heart. “Are you well?” I asked, thinking perhaps that we would cancel our dinner plans. She frowned, and I could see those stubborn lines on her face. Forty years of marriage told me I was about to get marching orders.

First though she gave the driver an address, St. Giles, and my dear friend that was one place I did not want to go. In St. Giles the criminals rule the streets. Even slumming young fops out of Cambridge do not venture down those dark streets. I complained, I argued, I even ordered, but to no avail. She was adamant. There was a boy to be rescued. Boy? Wild boys can be found in every alley of London. Why this one? She would not listen to reason and had that light in her eyes.

When we stopped, I saw that we had come to an “amusement” house. Common laborers, who did not appear to labor, marched in among crass women hanging around the doorstep with garish clothes and too much flesh. I grabbed at my Lady, but she is fast for her age and pushed out even before the driver could dismount. I think he hesitated at the sight of the place.
The crowd laughed at our clothes, and men pulled off their caps to call me “Guv” and the women made offers that I will not repeat or even think on. The smell, oh Carlo, the smell was ripe sewage, the body odors were a thick wall to penetrate. But inside we went, I following in my Lady’s wake like a reluctant puppy.

The chamber inside was converted into a parody of a concert hall and there on a makeshift stage the most amazing puppet I have ever seen was dancing. He was dancing in rags and with bright red paint on his round face. The strings pulled and dangled from bone thin legs. The crowd alternated between cheering at the puppet and throwing garbage. Meanwhile I could see that there was a steady stream of men and “ladies” heading up the stairs.

“Where is this boy?” I gripped my wife’s arm, clutching her in this sea of hedonistic chaos. “You can not mean… he is not upstairs, is he?”

“No. He is there.” She pointed, her finger trembling. I didn’t believe her for a moment and then shook my head in shock. The puppet was too thin, too bony to be real. He must have been starved into emaciation. Ah, who could have done such a monstrous thing?

“He’s a real boy, William. His the last of five, all starved to death.”

I was horrified, my dear friend, and you know that I have seen a few things in my life.

We forced our way to the back of the stage, which was actually a back room, and there found the Puppet Master, a Mr. Fox I will name him, with the Madam who I will name Mrs. Cat. There was cage where one would hesitate to keep an animal, with chains and fouled straw.

The Fox and the Cat laughed at our outrage. Mrs. Cat had the most hideous teeth, and when she laughed the makeup on her face seemed to crack and ooze. She was probably suffering from the Syphilis. It was that sort of place. I thought perhaps that we would not survive the evening, my friend, because Mr. Fox started eyeing my gold lapel pins, and the silver handle on my cane. I told Lady Glenwood we should go, that we would call the authorities, but at that moment the boy came down from the stage.

As the boy came in, I thought it was our chance to escape, but not Lady Glenwood. She grabbed up my cane and hit Mr. Fox right over the head. When the man fell, the most astonishing thing happened, the boy, a poor and pathetic creature no more than bones, ran at the man and started kicking him. He hissed and growled, but made no human sounds. We had an awful time pulling him off, and when we did, well let us say that the Fox had paid for his crimes. Mrs. Cat, with the instincts of her species, had fled, leaving us with a crying, tormented savage. What a night!

So now, my friend, I have a little boy who has been beaten and starved for most of his life running about my estate and destroying the peace of my later years. We have never been happier. Our little puppet has become real boy.

Sincerely Yours,

Lord William “Geppetto” Glenwood 1878